Then where were you going?
I was just out and about. His eyes shifted.
He was lying. Why? It only intrigued her. The house is the only thing up this way. Do you know Kurt and Gretchen?
Who?
Never mind. She started toward the road. I can walk back. Its not far.
Shed almost reached him before Max realized that the information hed needed from Kurt, the whole reason hed been heading for the big house in the first place, was as close as his fingertips. And getting closer. Clad in a sheer, wet top with tempting yellow-lace swells. He dragged his eyes away from her breasts again. Ah, youre staying up there, right? Nobodys come here in months. Now all of a sudden theres a steady stream of people going there.
Well, my brothers getting She broke off.
Your brother is what?
My brothers getting tamed.
Thats not what you were going to say.
She blinked innocent azure eyes at him. If she told him about the wedding and he actually did know Kurt, he might put two and two together and identify her. It wasnt worth the chance.
Is something going on up there this week besides this taming business? he asked. Will everyone clear out again soon?
Honey shrugged. I imagine so. They wont tell me anything. But why in the world would they stay after thetaming?
Now what did that mean? he wondered. It didnt matter. Shed as good as told him that he only had to lay low for a while, that all these intrusive people werent long-term. He turned away again and began climbing up the rocks. She trailed behind him.
She gave him a little wavenot as jaunty as Honey would have done, nor as polite as what would be expected from Honoras he righted his bike again. She turned toward the house. Shed taken four steps before his voice stopped her.
So why did you get kicked out of the Girl Scouts?
Honey turned around to walk backward. My brother bought up all my cookies and I won the Disney World prize. They said it was fixed.
Was it?
Nah, thats just the way Drew She caught herself. Drexel. The way Drexel is.
Drexel.
My brother.
The tame one?
No. The other.
He gunned the throttle. He was going to leave, Honey thought. Suddenly, she had an almost overwhelming need to keep him. As long as he was here, as long as they were trapped here in time, she was just herself and even her Portuguese Plan didnt seem to matter too much.
I also put a snake in Marilena Morgans sleeping bag at camp! she called as he drove back toward the beach.
She wasnt sure if he heard her or not.
Four
I n her own defense, Honey thought, shed tried to get back to her bell room without being spotted.
She slipped into the kitchen with the intention of using the back stairs. Rafaela was beating the tar out of something in a large metal bowl with her back toward her. Honey sidestepped for the stairs door, then a floorboard creaked beneath her and Rafaela glanced over her shoulder. They stared at each other for a moment then the woman shouted.
O deus bless o, aqueles motocicleta matar algum!
Even without her dictionaryHoney had it in her back pocket because she really had anticipated that Joe was Portugueseshed picked up a few key words of that. God. Motorcycle. Kill. Im fine. No problemo here. Caught dead to rights, she marched more normally through the door to the stairs.
She was on the first tread when the womans shriek brought Gretchen, who had apparently been lingering in the big room. Oh, Lord! she cried when Honey turned around and she saw her face.
Its nothing. Really. My bones are all still in one piece.
Gretchen rushed at her anyway. She pulled her back into the kitchen, took her chin and turned her face into the sun that streamed through one of the back windows.
Well, if I didnt hurt before, Honey muttered, I do now.
Gretchen dropped her hand fast. Oh! Im so sorry!
Honey was instantly contrite. I was just jiving you. Please, dont ever take me seriously. No one else does.
The door to the big room swung open again and Kurt came in. Wow, he said, youre going to have a shiner. Howd you get wet?
I went over the cliff on the scooter. The seawater is just left over from a little first-aid effort.
Rafaela called on God and cursed scooters again in Portuguese. She zeroed in on Honey with a towel and looked for all the world as if she was going to start dabbing it at her cheek. Honey backpedaled fast. The body replenishes skin cells every twenty-four hours. This is really no big deal.
But the pretty face be mess for the wedding. Rafaela clucked.
The pretty face never goes to weddings without makeup, Honey assured her.
Hows the bike? Kurt asked.
She thought about lying, then gave it up. Maybe nothing a good mechanic and a hammer cant fix. I hope, she added silently. And if it was beyond repair, then she would just fix the mess the way she fixed all her messes. She would pay him for it.
What the hell did you do now? Marcuss voice boomed into the kitchen.
Honey looked at him warily as he stormed in. Now, see, you automatically assume this was my doing when in fact a maniac drove me off the road.
There are no maniacs on that road! Marcus hollered.
I beg to differ. Honey sniffed indignantly and drew herself up to her full height, which wasnt much more than five foot three, but it would have to do.
Theres nobody on these roads, Gretchen fretted.
Tell that to the scooter.
Youre coming to my wedding with a bloody face? Marcus demanded.
Honey turned for the stairs again and looked over her shoulder at him. Watch yourself. Dont get my dander up or Ill come to your wedding naked.
Someone hissed in a breathmaybe Gretchen, maybe Samantha. Sam was now standing in the door to the big room, propping it open with one hand, trying to figure out what was going on.
Honey dove up the stairs, desperate to get away from them all. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that twenty minutes ago shed enjoyed the luxury of just being herself for the first time inwell, maybe in her entire life.
She reached the bell room and whipped her T-shirt over her head for the second time in the last half hour. She started to take it to the bathroom to soak the sea salt out of it but remembered that there wasnt a bathroom up here. But, she thought, neither was there a Marcus, a fussing maid or an appalled Gretchen.
She sighed and dropped the shirt on the floor. She went to one of the windows, bracing a shoulder against the frame and crossing her arms as she stared out. The Sea Change was still bobbing on the deep blue waters off the far south beach but she was too far away to tell if Joe had made it back on board. Who are you, anyway? she wondered aloud
. What are you doing here?
He was American, she thought. No doubt about that. And granted, she hadnt seen a great deal of the island yet, but she had the strong hunch that other than Gretchen and Kurt, Marcus and Samantha, she and Joe were the only other anglos in residence. She knew what the others were doing here. But what was Joes story? And why had he asked her how many more people would be coming to Brunhia and how long they would stay?
Okay, Honey thought, something was wrong with this picture.
Damn it. She dropped her arms and moved away from the window. Shed found an absolutely exquisite body attached to an intriguing man who didnt know her as Honey, didnt know her as Honor Elise, and didnt even much seem to want to come on to herand something was definitely wrong with him.
She went to one of her suitcases for a dry top. She found a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of her favorite rap group, B2K. She yanked it over her head then headed back to the stairs.
She needed to speak with Kurt. He seemed honest, basic, no-nonsense. She had to find out if Joe had any connection to Marcuss wacko situation. If he did, that brought him a little too close to her world. It edged him perilously near to bam-bam-bamsville.
And if she managed to wheedle some details of Marcuss top-secret voodoo genes out of Kurt in the process, well, she thought, then that was all the better.
Honey landed in the kitchen and Rafaela looked up again and frowned. Senhora, your cheek. It is still ugly.
Shed forgotten about it. Ill clean it up in a minute. Do you know where Kurt is?
Sim. In the garage talking to my Ricardo.
Honey dodged out the back door. Just as she did, Kurt emerged from the garage. Honey jogged to catch up to him before he could get too close to the house.
Sorry about the bike, she said a little breathlessly. She pivoted and fell into step beside him, then she put a hand on his arm to stop him.
Dont worry about it. We keep several of them and I cant see a whole lot of our guests using them these next few days.
Honey thought of her mother on a motor scooter. Probably not.
Ricardo will bring it back and well hit the mainland for whatever parts he needs to fix it. Kurt starting walking again.
Wait!
He looked back at her questioningly.
The thing is, I dont know exactly what youve been told about me, but a lunatic really did run me off the road, she blurted.
We have a lunatic on Brunhia?
She couldnt actually tell if he looked alarmed or disbelieving. Maybe it was a little of both. In any event, it was the opening she needed. Marcus told me a little of whats been going on with him. The lunatic is American so Im a little concerned that this guy might be, you know, involved somehow in the voodoo-gene thing. Marcus said a lot of people who are would be here this week.
Her blood quickened when Kurt frowned. Theres another American stalking the island? Theyve already nailed Zach and they almost got Gretchen so I guess theyre capable of anything. Thanks. Ill look into it.
Names. Oh, yes, she was definitely getting somewhere this time. Whos Zach?
Im not supposed to tell you anything.
Honey raked her hands through her hair, then she dropped them back to her sides in frustration. What if this guy is planning to nail me? He says his name is Joe and hes tucked up on that sailboat down there off the beach. And no offense but this place doesnt rank real high on the worlds list of exciting vacation meccas.
Kurts tension dissolved abruptly. To her utter disbelief, he laughed. Joe? The guy living on the boat off the south beach? This is your lunatic?
Honey nodded hard. Her hair danced. Thats the one.
Hes harmless.
Hes not involved in thisWhat did you call it again? Marcuss genetic voodoo stuff?
His gaze leveled on hers. Good try. I didnt call it anything.
Well, she thought, she had to admire the guys intelligence. Do you know Joe?
Hes been anchored down there for a few months now.
It wasnt an answer, she thought. She tried to tell herself that Kurt had pretty much just labeled Joe as Fair Sex Game if he wasnt involved in Marcuss mess, but she was dissatisfied. So Im not in any danger?
Why would you be? The Coalition pretty much knows who they want now and its not you.
Coalition? Honey was reasonably sure shed never heard the term before but it nudged something else dangling at the back of her brain.
She might work in the White House, but Honey tried very hard not to get too involved with anything political, even if she did have a poli-sci degree. Still, she occasionally picked up a newspaper and she fielded all those White House phone calls. To a large degree she knew who was calling whom and when. Sometimes she was even able to garner why.
Its true, she said suddenly, bluntly.
Of course it is. If I honestly believed that you were in any sort of danger, Id tell you.
Not that. I was talking about this whole Fight Fear campaign that President Stewart has going on. Its true. Suddenly Honey had to hunt for her breath. It wanted to catch and clog. She thought about what her brother had done earlier on the roadside and the buzz of wild, panicked phone calls that had been coming into the White House these last months, and for the first time she put it together. There is something to fear!
Kurt took a wary step backward. Got to go now.
He looked like a trapped animal, she thought. But she plunged on. The buzz inside the White House has been that that CIA guy had some sort of nervous breakdown and he was talking nonsense.
I have no idea what youre talking about.
The one who went to the press blathering about designer babies, altered genes, murder, et cetera.
Oh. That CIA guy.
He accused the good ol U.S. of A. of sponsoring some voodoo experiment that would create superhumans and now my own brother is running around playing superhero without a cape.
Do you consider your brother superhuman?
He often thinks he is. Honey paused, remembering something else. One of the papers said some of these experiments had actually been born.
Was it a weekly rag with a three-headed llama on the cover?
Honey set her jaw. I believe it was The Washington Post.
I think the Post also said no one was able to find any files pertaining to such a project.
Youre lying to me. That whole projectthe people who did ittheyre theWhat did you call it? The Coalition.
I can state with absolute sincerity that thats not true.
Honey frowned. Then who went after this Zach person if not the government who created the voodoo-gene babies?
Talk to your brother, Kurt suggested, easing away again.
Damn, Honey thought, he was good at dodging. She started to go after him, then she stalled. She was going to be here for a week. Shed get to the bottom of this sooner or later After she shed her virgin status.
> She followed after him back to the house. What she wouldnt give right now for her computer! She could jump online and search out all the newspaper and rag articles shed ignored these last months and get the dirt on this situation. Why had she blown those stories off when theyd first appeared in print? Because, she thought, they hadnt been talking about Marcus then. It had all just seemed like superfluous rattle-tattle stuff, and the word winging through the Great White Hallowed Halls was that it was nonsense. Shed had a bigger stake in partying and her bam-bam-bam, rat-tat-tat problem.
Even when Marcus had sent her that letter, it still hadnt triggered. Because Marcus waswell, Marcus. Shed just thought he was saying that his real parents had been involved in some sort of experimental fertility project and maybe that had made him a little healthier than most. In all fairness, she thought, agitated again, that was exactly the way hed made it sound. But since when did parents desperate to conceive a childdesperate enough to take part in an experimental studyturn around and put that kid up for adoption?
Honey shook her head dazedly. It was overwhelming. There really were designer babies and in all likelihood her brother was one of them.
Rafaela was no longer in the kitchen when she returned there. Honey trotted up the stairs, glancing at her watch. It wasnt even two oclock yet. That meant the day still offered plenty of beach time. She closed the bell-room door behind her and began peeling out of her clothes, putting wigged-out genetic experiments from her mind. She just hoped she wouldnt find Marcuss face in the newspaper any time soon beside a photo of Dolly the Sheep.
Half an hour after leaving Kurt, Honey stood in the barn with her beach satchel slung over her shoulder. Dressing for her next encounter with Joe-the-Inexplicable-American had proven to be just a tad tricky. True, he hadnt ignored her breasts when shed been running around in her bra earlier. But hed tried to ignore them. So she hadnt been quite sure if he would be more susceptible to her lemon-yellow thong or her teal-blue maillot suit.
Family Secrets: Books 5-8 Page 50
